Keyboard shortcuts are dead useful. The universal application of Command + C, Command + V etc., across different OS, is a proof of just how convenient they are. Turbodo is a Mac app worth $4.99 that takes universal shortcuts to a new level. It allows you to create shortcuts for just about any file, folder and app on your Mac. The app runs unobtrusively in the System Menu Bar, and no matter which app you are working in, or which desktop space you’re on, the app enforces the shortcuts you create. You can open and execute several files and apps from just one shortcut. The app has a drag & drop interface for adding executable items.

When you first launch the app, it will prompt you to create shortcuts before the window interface closes on its own. The app will, nevertheless, add a folder like button with two arrows pointing in opposite directions, to the System Menu Bar. Click this Icon and select Edit Shortcuts. To add a shortcut, click the plus button at the bottom of the left panel. This panel lists all shortcuts that you’ve created. When you click the plus button, an untitled shortcut is added and selected. Edit the Name field and enter a name that will help you identify what this shortcut does. Click the Shortcut field and type in the shortcut you want to set, i.e., if you want to set Command + M as shortcut, press the Command and M keys together. To add the app or file this shortcut will open/execute, drag & drop it onto the Files, apps, or folders to open: field. You can add as many files, folders or apps as you like, and they will all open when the shortcut is typed. Enter one file path or shell command per line.

If you find the app is interfering with shortcuts from another app, you can always execute these shortcuts from the System Menu bar. Simply right click the app icon and click the desired shortcut. All apps or folders that you’ve added to the shortcut will open when you click just the one shortcut. The shortcuts are represented by the name you entered when creating them. As mentioned before, ensure that the names make sense, or you will not be able to identify them from the Menu Bar.

Overall, the app works seamlessly and there isn’t any conflict when it comes to working with other apps. Practice caution as the app will not warn you against entering shortcuts like Command + C, and it might end up conflicting with your word editor, or even your browser.

Get Turbodo From Mac App Store

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Like its predecessors, Windows 8 imposes strict access permissions on system-wide locations, folders and files. These access permissions restrict unauthorized users (including clients on network, and standard and guest users on local PC), and external sources (malicious scripts, viruses, malwares etc), from accessing core system folders and files. You may know that, when a malicious script attacks a system, it attempts to gain admin or root access to the system to exploit security vulnerabilities. In contrast to previous Windows versions, Windows 8 comes with an enhanced, and robust Advanced Security Settings, making it difficult for a novice users to gain complete control over the system locations, folders and files.

The file permission is a pre-defined rule that is associated with numerous system objects/users, preventing unauthenticated objects from taking full control over the system files. These file access rules help Windows check if a user or system object can gain special file access and write permission of a file. Additionally, the file access rules are defined by Windows, and can only be changed by PC administrators. The process of taking ownership of system files and changing access permission of system files is quite complicated, as it requires inheriting user objects or replacing default owner (TrustedInstaller object) with a specific PC user. In this post, we bring you step-by-step instructions for gaining full control over Windows 8 system files.

The system-wide locations, including Windows and System32 folder, don’t allow administrators to modify the system dynamic link libraries, executables, and other files. However, you can change the permissions for system files by tweaking Advance Security Settings. For instance, you want to edit and rename Windows 8 Theme DLL file namely uxtheme.dll. The first step for modifying the file content is to gain full file access and write permissions from system user object (TrustedInstaller), which has complete control over all system data.

To begin, move to location where system file that you want to modify, is residing. You will notice that Windows 8 denies all type of write access to the system file, and shows File Access Denied dialog when you attempt to modify, delete and rename the file.

Before you begin, make sure that you have administrative privileges to change the file access permissions, as standard user account holders can’t change the ownership of system files. Just right-click the file whose access permissions are to be changed, and then, select Properties. Now, move to Security tab, and select Administrators (<your user account name>\Administrators) from Permissions box to view the current file access permissions.

By default, users from Administrators group can only read and execute the file, and they don’t have permission to modify and write to file. To gain full file write access, click Advanced, present underneath the permissions box.

This will open Advanced Security Settings dialog of file, showing all the permission entries, Owner’s name, etc., with an option to change the file access permissions of selected user. First, off, change the owner by clicking Change. It will open Select User or Group dialog for selecting the new owner of the file. Instead of entering the name of owner, you can use the Advanced option to select the user from list. For this, click Advanced button.

In Advanced mode, you can search all the available users by clicking Find Now. It shows users and system objects in the list at the bottom, letting you select user/group to give ownership of the file. If you for instance want to give full file write and access permission to user who belongs to Administrators group, select Administrators and hit OK. Similarly, you can add more users by adding Users group from the list.

Once Administrators group is added, click OK to close the Select User or Group window.

Upon click, it will change the ownership of the file. Now, you need to add a specific Auditing entry for Administrators group to modify the file permissions (read, execute, write, modify etc). Just head over to Auditing tab, and click Add.

It will open Select User or Group dialog, allowing you to add a user object for inserting it into auditing entries list. You can either manually enter the name of user (who belongs to Administrators group) or click Advanced to select the user from the list.

Once you add the Administrator to auditing entries, it opens a Auditing Entry dialog to let you specify the file permissions. You can click Show advanced permissions to view and enable all file-related access permissions including traverse folder/execute file, read attributes, read extended attributes, create files/write data, write attributes, delete, read permissions, change permissions, take ownership and more. In order to gain complete control over file, select Success from Type drop-down menu, and enable Full control and hit OK.

This will define the file permissions for selected user. Now, click Apply followed by OK to make changes to file access permissions.

Upon click, Windows Security dialog shows up, confirming the changes made to file security and permission settings. Click OK and then close both Advance Security Settings and file Properties dialog.

Now, all you need is to open the file Properties dialog, head over Security tab and hit Edit. You will notice that it now allows you to change the file access permissions for all users who belong to Administrators group. Select the user from the list, and under Allow field, check Full control checkbox to gain full file access permissions.

Now, click Apply, a dialog will pop-up confirming the action. Hit Yes to allow full file access control for selected file.

Once file permissions have been gained, you will be able to modify file content, rename it, delete and change file’s extension. However, changing default file security settings will leave system files vulnerable to external attacks. So, it’s advised to restore the original file access settings after making required changes.

We also tried using Rizone Take Ownership Extension (an application for Windows 7 that integrates with Windows right-click context menu to quickly take ownership of files and folders) on Windows 8 system files, but it failed to gain special permission for writing and modifying system files. If you have tried any alternative that has worked, let us know in the comments.

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Sometimes file directories can have similar file names that can make it nearly impossible to identify a file from within a folder. File Bookmark is a Windows shell extension, which has been designed to bookmark files via the Windows right-click context menu, to find the right file(s) that you have opened earlier from a specific folder. It allows you to automatically mark the last bookmarked file from a folder, so you don’t have to manually look up the file within the folder’s content. This can be quite helpful to avoid  the laborious process of searching out several files from within numerous directories, and to deal with non indexed files (which can be hard to locate).

All you have to do is to click a file and bookmark it from the File Bookmark option that will be automatically added to the Windows right-click context menu, once this shell extension is installed.

When you bookmark a file, a bookmark is created within the same directory, which is distinctly unique in it’s appearance as compared to other files (as it is of a different file format). This makes it easy to launch a specific file by simply executing the bookmark by double-clicking it.

A good thing about this shell extension is that, unlike other shell extensions, it provides easy uninstallation via Options –> Uninstall (tab) or from Add or Remove programs. File Bookmark works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download File Bookmark

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When the default Windows Start Menu received a facelift in Windows Vista, a very useful search feature was also added. It comes in very handy for quickly searching your whole computer for any type of file or folder, including images, documents, folders, zip archives, executable files etc., without opening any window or search module. Pretty Run is an application that does more than the native search function of Windows Vista and Windows 7. Keep reading to learn more about Pretty Run.

Pretty run allows you to search Internet Explorer Favorites, Firefox and Chrome Bookmarks, Control Panel Items, Printers and many other locations for the required files and folders. The complete list of features of Pretty Run provided by the developer is as follows.

• Search Internet Explorer favorites
• Search Firefox bookmarks
• Search Chrome bookmarks
• Search printers and start printer properties
• Search Control panel items
• Setup internet search engines and you can search internet with selected engine
• Remember last items copied to clipboard and bring them back in case you need them
• Search mp3 files (not file names but tags)
• Run a group of programs with one click
• Setup your magic words and start favorite programs really quickly

After installation, the application runs in the system tray and can be accessed by double clicking its icon. A search bar is available, and as you type, the application searches for the files and folder matching the name in real-time. Files found on the desktop and option to search for the entered text on the internet is displayed in separate categories.

Right-click the tool’s system tray icon and select Options to access the Pretty Run Options window. It has five tabs, which deal with settings related to Display, Search, Filter, Magic Words and Advanced properties. You can configure items, such as number of last used items to show, application hot key, language, searching categories, add, edit and delete search filters and add magic words.

The Advanced tab allows you to prepare the application to run as portable version, alert for plugged in USB Flash drives when shutting down computer, alert of drives placed in CD-ROM, and stop the shutdown process if something is detected.

Pretty Run works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Pretty Run

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Dropbox is perhaps one of the most widely used cloud storage service across numerous desktop and mobile platforms. While cloud storage services like Dropbox provide efficient synchronization of data, they have been criticized as of late for lack of security. Moreover, there is no built-in method for task automation for such services. Dropbox Automator is a web service that enables automatically performing actions with files stored in your Dropbox directory. You can, for instance, automatically encrypt files when they are added to a specific directory, including converting the added file(s) to PDF, adding it to a ZIP archive, encrypting it, and more.

To get started, head over to Dropbox Automator, login with your Dropbox credentials, and allow access to your Dropbox account.

Once done, select a Dropbox folder to apply an action to, and click Next to continue.

This will provide you with a number of actions that can be applied to your Dropbox folder. For example, you can automatically convert a document to PDF, summarize it, translate it, convert PDF to text, upload it to Slideshare, digitally sign it, upload it to Facebook or Flickr (requires connecting your account), downscale or rotate it, encrypt/decrypt, ZIP, email, tweet, rename and save it to a specific Dropbox folder. After selecting the action, click Add Action to apply the action.

During testing, we successfully added an action of compressing newly added files to a specific folder (as shown in the screenshot below). You can remove all added actions by logging in with your Dropbox account at the Dropbox Automator website.

Since Dropbox Automator is a web service, therefore, it works with all kinds of Dropbox clients, across all supported desktop and mobile platforms.

Visit Dropbox Automator

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There are many free backup services out there, that let you create backup copies of your data, but most of them get you confused with a lot of options and menus. SaBackup is an open source backup application that creates incremental backups of your data by using Microsoft’s Robocop and Volume Shadow Copy service. You can add backup sources from an easy-to-use GUI, and define multiple folders to backup at a time. Moreover, it allows you to exclude file types, and specific files and folders from the backup sources, allowing you to customize the backups according to your need. The application enables you to run applications as pre-backup and post-backup operations. Running some applications require you to start them as administrator, and prompt you to enter administrator password; SaBackup lets you start applications as administrator by default. The backup files do not need any special application to view, and can be accessed from any regular file explorer.

The application has Backup to local drive and Backup to network share options at the top. The Backup Sources appear in the middle, while Add backup source, Edit backup source, Delete backup source, Move backup source up and Move backup source down, Start backup and Advanced settings buttons are available at the bottom. Click Start backup to start the backup process.

To create a new backup source, select Add backup source to access the New source window. Enter the name of your backup and enter directory path. If you want to exclude any specific files, file types or subfolders from the main folder, you can add them under Exclude Files and Exclude Folders. When every thing is done, click OK. Add multiple backup sources in the same way.

Select Advanced Settings to configure options such as Number of retries on failed operations, Wait time between retries, Run program before backup and Run program after backup. You can choose to start the applications as administrator by default. Click OK to save changes.

During backup, click Show Details button to view the complete log of the backup process, including Total, Copied, Skipped, Mismatch, Failed and Extras folders and files processed.

SaBackup works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download SaBackup

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Depeche View Lite is a portable application for loading, viewing and searching text, CSV and log files within a directory tree. You can search a phrase (by simply clicking on it), fly through results by moving the mouse wheel, copy text and create bookmarks. For example, it can load thousands of text files in a single window, which provides you instant search facility (as you type). You can search a word just by clicking on it, by copying a line, creating bookmarks and adding self-defined commands on function keys. Details after the break.

To get started, select a directory containing the text files. You can click Open button to load all text files from a folder, append text from folder, load text from a single file, append text from a file and configure loading filters and options.

To configure advanced settings and filtering content, select the “loading and filters” option. From here, you can load only file names containing specific file extensions, include sub-directories and hidden files/folders in the search result, load text from binary files, load text from wide character files, change font style, enable disable case sensitive search, enable one click search, activate highlighting of whole search result, enable assistance mode, display cache for fast scrolling and more.

It must be noted that Depeche View has both a free and paid version. The light version has a limitation, i.e., you can only load and search up to 1,000 files (or 20 MB or text). Depeche View works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Depeche View Lite

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Normally, when one requires finding information about media or any other file, it can be done by accessing file properties via right-click context menu. However, in order to obtain advanced information about a file, such as codec information, tag data, bit rate, sampling rate, channel(s) etc, then one requires the use of third-party applications. QMediaInfo is one such application that parses media files. It provides information about more than 40 different attributes of a selected (media) file, right down to the files’ track name, genre, duration, codec, file extension and much more.

QMediaInfo is a QT based application, and has versions for Windows and Linux. You can install QMediaInfo in Ubuntu from the PPA given below.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:razrfalcon/qmediainfo

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:shiki/mediainfo

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install qmediainfo

Once installed, you can open any file with QMediaInfo via right-click context menu. In case QMediaInfo does not appear in the context menu, select Open With other Application and select QMediaInfo from the list of installed applications.

By default, QMediaInfo does not display all attributes of a file. To add/remove attributes to view in QMediaInfo, click the cog icon. Here, click Add and select attributes to view for selected files. The available options include, track name, album, track name/position, file size, folder name, codec, writing library, count, kind of stream, duration, performer, recorded date, format version, format profile, comment, codec profile, bit rate, bit rate mode, channel(s) and more. You can also enable full info mode and word wrap for plain text view.

Once you have configured your settings, all selected file attributes will be available from the main window of QMediaInfo (click question mark icon).

You can download QMediaInfo for Windows and Linux from the link given below.

Download QMediaInfo

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Track Folder Changes is a portable application for tracking real time changes within directories and sub-directories. It displays a list of created, deleted and changed files (highlighted in separate colors) for a selected folder, which enables monitoring real time alterations within a specified directory. This can help users keep an eye on file rendering processes and to track a processes which may be causing issues within a database directory. For example, if a virus is replicating files on your server, you can specify a directory and track real time changes being applied to numerous files and sub-folders. Likewise, tracking folder changes can help you understand the file creation, deletion and file alteration pattern. This may be handy to help identify how often an application (such as a virtualization program) may require creating, changing or deleting files. Such calculations can help identify specific needs for the respective application (e.g. potential hard disk space requirement for a dynamically expanding virtual disk).

Track Folder Changes has a simplified and self-explanatory interface. Once you specify a directory, all sub-directories and respective files are displayed in a tree. Different kind of file types are highlighted in separate colors, to help the user identify file changes. The newly created files are highlighted in green, whereas the files that have recently been changed are displayed in blue. You are even provided with a list of deleted files that appears in brown color.

This makes it easy to understand the real time file changes at a glance. It not only helps you view file changes, but also to identify and open required files (such as recently changed files, highlighted in blue color). You can open any file, directory or copy its path via right-click context menu.

Track Folder Changes is an open source application, which works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download Track Folder Changes

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Analyzing file properties becomes quite tedious task when you have to use different tools to examine checksum, file integrity, security loop holes and so on.  This means that multiple applications need to be installed on the computer and data from these programs is required to perform a complete file analysis. Instead of performing these laborious tasks, you can use FileAlyzer. It’s an application that shows file content in a HEX dump format and other properties such as file integrity, anomalies (if any), classification sources, hashes, meta tags and a lot more. Moreover, you can verify file integrity via online sources such as VirusTotal and ThreatExpert. According to the developer, FileAlyzer was named this way due to a typo, but he decided to keep the name.

To get started, open a file with FileAlyzer to obtain in depth information about it. The General tab displays verbose information about the file. This information is almost similar to information, which is accessible from Windows File Properties dialog. This includes the file name, extension, creation date, location, size, date, times, version and attributes. The information provided in addition to what you find in Windows Properties Dialog, includes CRC-32 and Message Digest 5 checksum of the file.

The Hex tab contains a HEX viewer with search bar to search HEX values from the file content. It shows the dynamic width of HEX dump and string recognition listing. Similarly, the OpenSBI tab provides file name, path, time stamp and other information, which can also be obtained from the General tab. The Map, Bitmap and Audio tags tabs contain information such as tags (if any), a graphical display of the file (if applicable), and other resources such as icons, text menus, dialogs and the like.

Hashes help users verify both file security and integrity. From Hashes tab, you can select hashes which are to be calculated including the CRC check, Message-Digest algorithm and US Secure Hash Algorithm.

FileAlyzer provides a number of sources to obtain information regarding  file’s attributes, security and integrity. You can obtain this information via the Classification Sources tab, which provides a number of online resources such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, ThreatExpert, VirusTotal and Comodo for quick file scanning.

FileAlyzer is a comprehensive tool that enables you to obtain in-depth details regarding a specific file, without the need for multiple applications to perform the tasks. The acquired data can be saved in TXT, HTML and XML format. FileAlyzer works on Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Download FileAlyzer

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If you’ve recently taken a vacation or just like to take a lot of pictures then it is likely you know how difficult it is to organize images taken either from your digital camera or phone camera since they are all saved with the same name prefix with a number appended after it. Renaming these files can be a pain because you have no choice but to rename each one individually. While this may occur most commonly with image files, you might need to rename a number of other types of files too. Name Dropper is a desktop application that allows you to rename files and attach an incremental number to each one by dragging & dropping the name on to each file.

The application allows you to rename any kind of file; image, multimedia, document etc. To rename files, drag & drop them on to the application’s interface. The application allows you to view the files in several layouts, to remove a file right-click it and select Remove selected files or Folders. You can reorder the files by dragging & dropping them.

To rename a file, you will have to drag & drop the new file name either from your browser or a text editor (notepad does not work). Type in the file name you want to give to a file, select it and drop it on to the file’s tile or thumbnail in Name Dropper. To append an incremental number and add the same name for different files, use the syntax File name <#>. The hash sign will add an incremental number at the end of the file name so you have files named as File name1, file name2, file name3, and so on.

If you would like to add text to the file name, i.e. you have a series of image files named image1, Image2, Image3, etc and you want to name them to File Name Image1, File Name Image2 etc., use the syntax File Name <0>.

Type whatever you want to rename a file to and use the appropriate syntax. Type in your browser’s URL bar or even the search field on Google, select it and drag your cursor on to the application’s interface and on the file you want to rename. While you will have to drag & drop the file name on to each file individually, it is, nevertheless easier than renaming them the conventional way.

Download Name Dropper

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Windows DIR command displays a list of files and sub-folders from a specified directory. Simple File Lister is a GUI application for the Windows DIR command line that allows using over 200+ file attribute to retrieve file lists. It generates a report for files according to specified attributes in CSV, TXT or TSV format. Simple Files Lister does not require administrative privileges and supports major spreadsheet viewers including MS Excel, OpenOffice, Google Docs and LibreOffice, etc for opening supported output file formats. You can also save templates with a combination of your selected file listing criteria, to use it later. Hence, Simple File Lister makes it easy to retrieve file lists from directories without having to remember lengthy command prompt commands and provides a simplified user interface which makes it easy to generate a detailed report containing in-depth file information according to user-defined criteria.

To get started, select a directory to scan and click Template to select file attributes.

You can select multiple file attributes for generating the list of files within the selected directory. The available attribute options include name, size, item type, date modified, date created, offline status, first name, full name, gender, email, read status creators, etc. Make sure you also specify a file extension for saving the report in, i.e. TXT, CSV or TSV. You can also click Save to save a template with the selected criteria for looking up files from a directory using the same attribute combination later on. This can be done by selecting a directory and clicking on Load Template File button. Once you have specified your criteria for listing files, click OK, followed by Run (play icon button) from the main interface.

This will generate a file which will contain details of files within the selected directorty. For example, if you selected information such as file name, size, item type, creation date and modification date, it will be represented within the report, along with the file path on the local drive.

Summary

In short, you just have to:

1. Select a directory to scan.

2. Select file attributes and optionally save the attribute combination for reusing it later to scan other directories.

3. Go to main interface and click Run to generate the report.

Simple File Lister works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2008.

Download Simple File Lister

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We previously reviewed URL Droplet, an online service for downloading files straight to your Dropbox account without accessing either the website or your Dropbox folder. One of our readers turned us on to sideCLOUDload; a service that does all that and more. It lets you download files but also gives you the freedom to create folders to download them to or to download them to existing folders. It isn’t just meant for sending files to Dropbox but also to your personal email inbox. The service has a bookmarklet that you can use to easily send files you might have open in your browser.

Copy and paste the file URL and choose if you want to send it to your Dropbox folder to your inbox. Enter your Dropbox Email login and password and click submit. When you download a file to Dropbox, you can also specify a folder name where the file will be saved. You can add the name of an existing folder or create a new one. If you don’t specify a folder name, the service creates its own folder sidecloudload and saves files to it.

sideCLOUDload also has a bookmarklet, simply drag & drop it to your bookmarks bar. Whenever you want to add a file to your account, copy the URL, click the bookmarklet and paste it in the dialog box that opens.

The folder feature gives it an edge over URL Droplet because you can organize files right from the service interface, you don’t have to worry that you’re slowly filling your Dropbox folder with lots and lots of unorganized files. The service also doesn’t save a history of files you’ve downloaded to your account and doesn’t keep you logged in to the service. You have to enter our login information every time but you can save if you want when you’re downloading multiple files.

The best part, the service page says ‘Currently Dropbox and Email’ for supported platforms which means we can expect more platforms to be supported soon.

Visit sideCLOUDload

Thanks Corey!

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Autodelete is a freeware that automates the task of deleting files and folders. You can select any folder and specify a particular time after which it is to be deleted (all files in the folder will be permanently deleted). The application will automatically delete files that are older than the specified time period. A log of all deleted activities can also be created.

The settings are categorized in three sections; the top, middle and the bottom pane. From the top settings, you can control if the application should Autostart with Windows. The option to create a log of deleted files is also found here. In the middle section, you will see the folder settings. In Folder settings, you can select as many folders and add them to the application. Then, you can specify different settings for different folders. For instance, you may be looking to delete files from Temporary Internet Folder on a daily basis, whereas you’d like to delete installer files that are a month old. You can add these folders separately and specify different settings for the both of them. You can also add filters for files that are to be deleted from the options here. To delete a particular file type or to prevent the application from deleting it, just select the appropriate option given. Then click add filter and specify file/folder type on which these actions should be applicable.

From the bottom section, you would need to choose what to do with the selected folder. You can specify the period after which the files are to be deleted. You can also choose to send files to Recycle bin or delete permanently. Another option is to move the files after the specified time period to another PC folder.

The video below demonstrates the working of Autodelete.

It supports Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 OS; testing was carried out on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download Autodelete

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A few days back, we reviewed Bulk File Manager v0.6 and discussed a host of functions that the application offers. Its author recently updated us with the news of newest version of the application, v1.0. A quick glance into this latest version revealed a couple of new, interesting features that were introduced by the product developer. Discover these new file managing features that can help you further organize your computer’s files and folders below.

It still retains its previous interface, with easy-to-access options, categorized under appropriate menus. We saw new features in the product, such as Bulk Mover, Zero Byte File/Empty Dir Management and Error Log. Some new deduplication options, meant for enhancing Deduplication function are also present in the latest product version.

If you want to shift files and folders in bulk, then Bulk Mover is a good choice. As you can see below, the feature employs effective filters that can help you sift through files and folders to move only those files that you want. You can specify file name, file extension, directory name and other filters to define the files you’re looking to move. Additionally, you can also choose to remove any empty directories while making the bulk move. Child directories within the selected folder can also be retained.

It is common to find zero byte files and empty directories scattered around in a computer system. Though  these directories and folders are of no use, yet it is very difficult to trace them out and remove them from the computer. The application simplifies this task, requiring you to select any folder from which you want to remove empty directories, zero byte files or both.

Error log feature maintains a log of all errors that a user experiences while using the program. A small description of the error is also recorded in this log. We also saw some new deduplication options. Filters were added to let users specify files that are to be fully scanned, directories that are not to be scanned, and file extensions that are not to be scanned. Additionally, the values entered in the appropriate fields can also be separated via delimiter |.

It supports Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7. It was tested on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download Bulk File Manager

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The Big Bad Launcher is an application that enables you to launch application files, folders and websites with a single click. It is useful for users who need to work with many different applications. It is also helpful if you have to switch quickly from one folder to the other. Additionally, you can launch multiple sites with this tool.

It offers a user-friendly interface. The application sits in the System Tray, from where you can launch it by pressing hotkey. You can pre-define the files, folders or sites that are to be launched. These settings can then be saved to your own profile. In this way, you can setup separate profiles for your work and leisure-related tasks, and specify them to open the type of applications you wish to use.

The applications are instantly launched from My Launcher window, which can be accessed by pressing hotkeys Win + Z.

This application is suitable for people who spend most of their time working on PCs. By automating the process of launching all your important files, folders or websites, you are left to focus on your work.

It supports Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7, testing was carried out on Windows 7 x86 system.

Download The Big Bad Launcher

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If you are looking to copy only those files that have been modified/changed from the pool of thousands of other files, then it is unquestionably a difficult task. I have personally seen users making complicated scripts for such a task, if you are an ordinary computer user with no programming background, you are still lucky.

CopyChangedFiles is a tiny free portable utility for Windows that only copies the files that have been modified by the user on or after a specific date. And yes, it does support Multi-Threading. Just select the from and to destinations, select the changed on or after date, the file types and hit Copy.

So what’s the use you ask? Various, among them the most important use that comes in my mind is to make incremental backups. According to the developer another usage is when you have a lot of customer websites that you maintain and only want to update the changed files.

Download CopyChangedFiles

It works on all versions of Windows. Enjoy!

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Are you a network administrator or a computer geek who wants to download hundreds or thousands of different files at one go? Mass Download is a free tool for Windows that lets you download multiple files instantly. It has been specifically build to use multiple threads, so that it can download the files even faster than most download managers.

To begin, first create a new text document, add all URLs in it(one URL per line), and save it.

Now run Mass Download, click Browse, locate the notepad(where you have added all URLs) and select the destination where you want to download the files. You can then choose the desired options and also exclude certain file extensions. By default .exe and .dll extensions have been masked. Once all is ready, hit Download and it will being downloading the files.

Note: Do not close this tool unless you see Operation Completed message. The status bar would show the 100% progress during both the start and end of the operation.

Read the log carefully in the screenshot above and you will see that two files that ended with .exe extension have been masked out. This is because both .exe and .dll were masked before the operation.

I compared the download speed with that of Firefox’s default download manager, and the result came out to be quite interesting. It downloaded the files two seconds before Firefox. Overall, I would say that it’s a great tool for those looking to download lots and lots of files, otherwise an average computer user won’t find the need to use this tool. It works on all versions of Windows. Enjoy!

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Sharing photos and videos on twitter is easy.  But when it comes to sharing compressed files, music, etc, you will first have to upload it to a file host, make the URL short, and then share it on Twitter. Well, not anymore.

FileSocial is a free service that let’s you upload and share an type of files on Twitter. Just sign in with your Twitter account, select the file and it’s description and hit Upload. The maximum limit is 20MB/file and formats such as pdf, jpg, doc, txt, zip, rar, mov, avi and mp3 are also supported.

The moment you hit Upload, your file will be uploaded and shared on twitter automatically. If you don’t want to share your file at the moment and only want to upload it, you can check the Don’t Post On Twitter checkbox before hitting Upload.

Once your file has been uploaded and posted on twitter, your followers can view your file by downloading it and also leave comments. There is a build-on public timeline where you can find all recently uploaded files. Enjoy!

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Rapidshare Auto Downloader (Alternative Link) is a free tool that lets you download multiple files from Rapidshare instantly. It saves you the headache of having to downloading multiple files one by one. Just add all the links and press Download, and it will handle the rest automatically.

Copy the URL of the file from Rapidshare.

Now paste this URL in the under Links and click Add Link. Once all URLs have been added, click Start Download to begin downloading your files.

You can select to Shut Down the computer once all downloads have completed. You can also change your download destination and schedule downloads. Another great feature is to scan your downloaded files with any anti-virus program.

Features include:

• Download a group of links from rapidshare (one by one).
• Download incomplete downloads until all links are downloaded.
• Autoshutdown feature
• Load and save the download list.
• Check for new versions automatically.

Enjoy!

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What if your Digital Camera memory card gets accidently formatted? Or worse an important office file from your hard disk or USB drive gets deleted. Fret not, since these deleted files are still recoverable. DiskDigger is a free portable app that lets you recover all lost files of any type(image, document, video, data, etc).

Run the executable file and you will see the list of drives detected(both internal and external).

Select a drive where you want to find your accidentally deleted or lost files and click Next. Now select the type of files that you want to search, if you have a memory card in which your photos got deleted you can select all image types instead of selecting all file types, this speeds up recovery process.

You can also go to advanced settings where you can choose whether to skip bad sectors or not and also select the position of the drive to start recovery from. Once done, click Next and the recovery process will begin.

You can pause or cancel the process anytime. What makes this tool unique is the simplicity, portability, and it’s ability to preview the recovered files. It separates the recovered files by file type such as Images, Documents, and Audio/Video.

Click Save to recover a file. The only downside is that you will have to manually recover the files one by one, there is no option to recover all files with a single click. Perhaps the developer should take notice of this problem, otherwise this tool is simply awesome. Enjoy!

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In December I covered a way to permanently delete files from Windows, but a reader meadowmuffin points out another great app for completely removing sensitive files. Eraser is a free opensource tool for Windows that completely removes files that you no longer need, in other words it’s a secure data removal tool. it works by overwriting your data several times with carefully selected patterns.

Note: When you delete a file from your hard disk using the Windows delete button, the file is only temporarily removed(even through you have emptied the recycle bin) and can be easily recovered. To permanently remove an important file and make it unrecoverable you have to use 3rd party tools like RightDelete, Eraser, etc.

Once installed, just right-click the file that you want to permanently delete and select Erase.

It will ask for confirmation, click Yes.

Note: Don’t go to options to change any settings unless you are an advance user.

After it has completed erasing the file, you will be shown a final report.

You can select multiple files and delete them instantly. But if you are looking for a way to completely remove multiple files at different directories, open Eraser and click New Task and add the files and folder that you want to permanently remove.

You can add multiple tasks and once all files/folders are added, click Run to begin the process of removing them permanently.

It’s a dead simple utility which can be used by anyone and is available for all versions of Windows. Enjoy!

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You come back from a trip after taking hundreds of photos, all these photos have names which are a combination of both alphabets and numbers. Now you want to batch rename your photos, there are tons of free tools through which you can do this but there is one tool that stands out from the rest. ReNamer is a powerful batch rename utility which allows you to quickly rename your files and folders in the most easiest way. What makes it stand out from the rest is the feature which allows you to add rules.

Update: For more advanced renaming tools, check out FileGrinder and Advanced Renamer.

To begin renaming files, drag the files which you want to rename in the window below and click the upper window to begin adding rules, you can add multiple rules.

What I will do is add the word ‘family vacation’ before every image file. So I select Insert from the left sidebar, add the name, set the required settings and click Add Rule button. Apart from the replace rule, this tool can batch change extensions, strip names, etc. Once you add the rule, it will look like this.

You can see the total number of files that will be renamed and the total size of all files in the status bar. In the preview bar you can see what the name will look before and after you rename the file. Now click the big green Rename button on top-right side to begin batch file rename instantly. Enjoy!

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The default video format for recording a video in Windows Media Center in Vista is .wtv only if you have TV Pack installed, also keep in mind that Microsoft has shifted from the old dvr-ms format to the new wtv format. In Windows 7 beta the default recording format is also wtv. There are many commercial software that support converting of wtv to other video format, but unfortunately such feature is not present in any free video converters.

So the best way to convert wtv to other video formats is to first convert it into dvr-ms and from there convert it to other video formats such as mpeg, avi, etc. This is a little tricky but an easy way to do it.

Note: You can also convert wtv files using Windows Live Movie Maker or with free MC-TVConverter.

To convert wtv to dvr-ms, there is a free command line tool available called ToDvrms. Download it and copy the executable file(todvrms.exe) to the same folder where the wtv video file is present.

Now enter the following command line,

todvrms.exe c:test.wtv c:test.dvr-ms

It will look like this in the Command Prompt,

where c is the destination of the video file, and ‘test’ is the name of the video file. This command line will convert test.wtv in c drive into test.dvr-ms.

You can also open the Graphical Interface(todvrmsgui.exe) and type the input and output destination there, but the command line method is more easier for novice users.

Now once you have converted the video to dvr-ms format, you can then go ahead and download DVRMSToolbox, it is a tool for converting dvr-ms into other video formats. Since it has a graphical interface, converting it would be easy here. Enjoy!

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There comes a time when our hard disk becomes cluttered. There are multiple files lying around and we don’t know about it. Sometimes we download a software and few months later a new version is launched and we forget to delete the old setup file. Sometimes we have a same song, picture, or document in multiple directories. Having duplicate files can consume a good amount of hard disk space.

DoubleKiller is a free utility that lets you find and remove all types of duplicate files from your computer, thus saving a little hard disk space for you. When you find duplicate files, it displays a little info which can help you in determining which version is newer. In this way you can keep the newer versions and delete all old ones instantly.

It is a standalone tool(no installation required), simply open the program and click Options tab to add new folders where you would like to search for duplicate files. There is also an option where you can assume files to be the same if: names are identical, sizes are identical, or dates are identical. You also leave out a few file types, such as read only, hidden, system files, etc.

You will find various other options listed. Now go back to DoubleKiller tab and click Run, it will find and display all duplicate files here.

It displays both original and duplicate files, so make sure you don’t delete all your files. Only compare and delete the duplicate file. Enjoy!

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Do you want to browse the archive and view it’s content before downloading it? Or you want to download only few files from the archive? LoadScout is a free app that lets you browse files inside remote archive and download them instantly. It has a build-in download manager which can download files easily from both web and FTP server. To test this software I uploaded a RAR archive with different sample pictures.

Open LoadScout, click OpenURL and enter the URL of the archive file, finally click OK. In my case it looked like this after I entered the URL of the archive file.

After you have clicked OK, it will begin processing the file with it’s powerful build-in engine and display all the files inside the archive on the right sidebar.

Click the image above to enlarge.

Now you can click any file that you like and extract it to your computer without downloading the whole archive. Right-click any file and select Extract.

This will bring a pop-up asking you where you would like to save the file, select a patch and click Start.

And wait for it to download automatically. It’s that easy. I could not find a single bug and the process was seamless. It integrates itself in Internet Explorer right-click context menu, but it would be great if they include support for Firefox too. It works on all version of Windows. Enjoy!

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Are you looking for a way to sync two folders, so that the change in one folder results in the change in the other? SyncToy, if you haven’t heard of the name before, is a free tool developed by Microsoft that can sync your photos, videos, files, between any two folders. This can save you a lot of time if you make frequent backups and do everything manually.

To begin, create a new folder pair by choosing the two folders you want to sync.

In the next step select Synchronize and click Next.

Give a name to this folder pair and finally click Finish.

Now you will see the complete details of the folder pairs in the main window.

Click the Preview button to preview all files that are ready to be synced.

If you think some files should be excluded you can do so by clicking the Change Options link and exclude any specific files, read-only files, hidden files, system files, etc. You can also select to exclude a sub-folder if any.

When you are ready and all settings have been done, click Run to begin backing up all your files. And if you delete or rename any file from the original folder, the same will happen to the file in the backup folder. It can come handy if you have a Server at home or online and want to backup all your important files, photos, or videos. Enjoy!

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Before I begin, let me explain how Index.dat can be a potential privacy threat to you. Index.dat files are hidden files on your computer that contain all tracks of your online activity, where have you been on internet, what sites you visited, list of URLs, files and documents you recently accessed. Index.dat Analyzer is a free utility through which you can find, view, examine and remove all information that you think preaches your privacy.  It can also come handy if you want to keep a check on your kids and family members.

Run the program and click the search button, this will search for all present index.dat files in the system and will display the results in a simple window.

Once it has detected all the index.dat files, select the one which you want to analyze.

It will then display the complete information which you can examine easily.

If you want to delete any information such as URLs, files, and documents, simply select it by checking the checkbox and hit Delete button. This tool works in Windows 2000/XP/Vista only. Enjoy!

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Do you want to access your friend or co-worker’s computer? Do you want to provide remote assistance, remote administration or remote teaching for your clients or employees regardless of their location? Ammyy Admin is an exceptional free little utility(only 144kb) that connects remote computers instantly without any installation or configuration.

You can view or control(using your keyboard and mouse) everything running on the remote computers and transfer files and folders. To access your friend’s computer, this tool must be installed on both systems. So ask your friend to install this tool on his computer, ask him to give his ID number.

Enter his ID number(client ID) in your tool by going to Operator tab.

Ask your friend to click Start button once he’s done, you click Connect button. Your friend will then be presented with a screen along with options that he would like to give to the Operator(that means you).

If you want to copy some files from his computer, he will have to check the Enable Access To The File System checkbox.

Note that I have only given an example of accessing your friend’s computer just to make things clear, you can use the same method to access your client’s or family’s computer.

If you are still confused, please check this step-by-step guide on how to connect to the remote computer. Enjoy!

Editor’s Note: There are many paid software that do this job and are popular due to huge marketing by their parent companies, therefore people tend to think that such software cost money. What they forget is that many remote access software are free too, such apps aren’t popular among people because the developer(s) don’t have sufficient funds to market their products. Ammy Admin has worked great and flawlessly for me, a million thumbs up to the developer(s) behind this useful little app.

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If you use Gmail frequently, you will find that searching for a specific photo, video, document, or any file inside your emails is quite difficult. Sure, you can use the build-in Gmail Search box but it is better used for searching emails, finding the right photos or any other file still remains a difficult task.

This is where Xoopit comes in. It is a small handy add-on for Firefox that customizes your Gmail so that finding photos, videos and other files becomes a piece of cake. In short, Xoopit converts your simple old inbox into a social inbox.

Below is an example of Xoopit running in my Gmail account.

As you can see from the image above, Xoopit found 237 photos, 42 videos and 144 other files in my inbox. Click any image and a pop-up box will open showing you the full details about the picture, navigate next or previous images by clicking the arrow buttons.

Click on Photos, Videos, or Files link and it will show you the complete list with thumbnails.

You can access your files anytime by accessing the Xoopit widget on the left sidebar. Below is an example how files are displayed.

From my experience once you get used to Xoopit, living without it becomes impossible. It’s kind of addictive. Enjoy!

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